


Orbits

by echomoon



Category: The Magicians (TV), The Magicians - Lev Grossman
Genre: Bisexual Character, Depression, Eventual Relationships, Exploration of sexuality, Light Angst, M/M, Mentions of Sex, Podfic Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-06-10 13:04:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6957634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/echomoon/pseuds/echomoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quentin had never really thought hard about his sexuality, but when he finds himself daydreaming about Eliot after a certain incident, he starts to question it. Eventual Queliot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Orbits

Quentin had never really thought hard about his sexuality because for most of his life he was only interested in two things: Julia, and Fillory. So coming to Brakebills and no longer having her to orbit around left him a little lost. At first he threw himself into learning magic, had little time for anything or anyone else. And even once the manic high of a new special interest faded, few people could draw him away.

  
When he first felt the urge for romantic notions, he was drawn to Alice. She was as smart as Julia, smarter, maybe, for making it into Brakebills. And though her body type was different her curves had a definite draw... But where Julia was warmth and safety and chasing childhood dreams, Alice was sharp and caustic and unwilling to let anyone in. And Margo may have been aesthetically similar to Julia but Quentin was nowhere near being in her league, and he wasn't really sure he even wanted to be. None of the other women in the school seemed interesting to or interested in him. And anyway, Quentin found learning magic more important than sex or relationships.

  
The other Physical kids were his only friends, especially Eliot. They had spent a lot of time together and Quentin felt they had built up a good friendship. Eliot was the only one who could always draw Quentin away from studying.

  
So coming across Eliot subbing for someone in that observatory was like a strange awakening. Quentin suddenly felt like a sexual creature again, thoughts of magic forced from his head by erotic fantasies - fantasies that, for some reason, Eliot tended to be the subject of. He yearned to be the one Eliot payed that sort of attention to. He daydreamed about Eliot kneeling in front of him instead of that stranger, of Eliot speaking to him in that low, hypnotic voice, of feeling Eliot's skin...

  
Needless to say, Quentin was confused. His previous experiences had led him to believe he was straight. Julia had been the only focus of his heart and though he had had sexual experiences with other girls, it had never really meant much - but he had liked it. He watched the other men on campus to find hints of attraction and thought back to his past to see if it was just Eliot or men in general. After a while of his friends teasing him for 'spacing out' when he was actually staring at the other students, he came to the conclusion that he did find men attractive but had never really thought much of it. There was just something about Eliot in particular that drew him in. He seemed to have a pattern - he found a sun and began to orbit it, and ignore everyone else.

  
At the first possible chance, he grabbed Margo and convinced her to go into the city with him to go clubbing. Without Eliot, of course. For science. He intended to find a man to sleep with, to see if this attraction to Eliot was just aesthetically or if he would enjoy gay sex the way he had enjoyed sleeping with those girls who weren't Julia.

He drank a little more than usual for courage, and was only mildly surprised when he woke up the next morning in the bed of a man who looked suspiciously like Eliot. The man kicked him out with an encouraging comment to 'practice your blowjobs for that Eliot you kept moaning about'. Quentin was only mildly embarrassed by this, somehow, and the afterglow of sex kept him mellow enough that he ignored Margo's winks and comments as they made their way back to Brakebills. His masturbatory fantasies after that may have involved his memories of that night with Eliot's face superimposed over the stranger's.


	2. Intervals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said like 2 weeks but listen, my dudes, time is an illusion. The good news is that not only am I posting this chapter, but the next (and most likely final) chapter is about 75% finished!! Which means that hopefully when I now promise you it will be posted within the next two weeks, it actually will. Barring me getting caught up in school which is entirely possible.

Quentin hadn't meant to avoid Eliot post-confirmation of his latent bisexuality. He genuinely hadn't. But once his experiment was done he didn't know what to do. His crushes had always gone unreciprocated, and he was used to pushing his feelings down.

Eliot’s touches, no matter how simple, like a pat on the back, felt like heat and longing. The more time Quentin spent around him, the more he felt like he was going to crash. Like if he opened his mouth he would admit something he didn't quite feel ready for and ruin everything, make things awkward and strained and just awful.

So Quentin went back to shutting himself up in the library, ignoring everyone, especially Eliot, until none of them bothered to try and drag him out anymore. He knew he should feel glad at the abandonment, that it was what he wanted, but it just made him feel worse. Loneliness gnawed at him until he felt hollow all the time. He ached for his friends, who probably hated him by now.

He stopped being able to focus on studying and instead spent most of his time staring at nothing. He was constantly spacing out and he barely ate. He knew he was having a depressive episode but he couldn't bring himself to care. Nothing mattered to him anymore.

 

\-----

Eliot noticed something was wrong with Quentin in the weeks after his escapade with Margo. Slighted by the fact that she’d kept it from him, Eliot had ignored her for a whole two hours, until she explained that Quentin had asked her not to say anything. The explanation hurt, but in a strange way; it was different from the pinch he felt when he thought Margo was the one leaving him out. He considered ignoring Quentin for a while too, but he didn't need to bother because Q was doing that work for him.

After two weeks of being pointedly ignored - though, to be fair, it seemed Quentin was ignoring everyone - Eliot had had enough. Equipped with the Physical Cottage’s specialty cocktail, he stormed into Margo’s room. He displaced her fling of the night with a particularly heated glare before sitting on her bed uninvited. Handing Margo her glass, he asked, “What exactly happened the night you and our darling Q went out?”

She pursed her lips. “I've been swo-”

“Sworn to secrecy, yes, as if that matters when it's you, Bambi.” He knocked back his drink.

“I'm very offended,” she said, in a voice that said she clearly wasn't. She took a sip of her drink. “You have to understand, I haven't told you because I know how you… feel about him. I didn't want you to get hurt.”

“He’s been fucked up ever since he came back. It doesn’t matter if it hurts me, I need to help him.” Eliot felt a certain possessiveness swell up inside him.

Margo sighed. “He went off with some guy and, as far as I can tell, they fucked. Q seemed pretty happy on the way home so I don’t know why he’s acting like this now.”

Eliot couldn’t deny the twinge of pain at the reveal that Quentin was interested in men. Why hadn’t Q shown any interest in him? He snatched Margo’s drink out of her hand and stood up, downing the remains. “Well, let’s go find him and figure this out.”

\---

 

Quentin woke up on a couch in the Physical Cottage. The room was suspiciously quiet and he thought he remembered falling asleep in his own bed upstairs. Maybe he’d sleepwalked? He stared up at the ceiling, unwilling to move.

Someone coughed. Someone not him, who was also in this suspiciously quiet room. He turned his head to find all of his friends - if he could still call them that - sitting across from him. And Penny. Why was Penny here?

“...Why were you watching me sleep?” He asked, still staring at Penny.

“They,” Penny said, pointing to Eliot and Margo, “brought you down here. I’m just here to read your mind.”

“...But I learned how to guard my mind?” He tried to think of a Taylor Swift song to be annoying but his brain was still too sleep-addled to focus.

“You’re depressed, Quentin. The worse you get, the worse your protections are.” Alice said, not looking up from her book. Quentin had been so focused on Penny that he hadn’t even noticed her sitting right next to him.

“That’s just. Great.” His voice went high. “What’s going on?”

“This,” Eliot said, standing up and pouring a drink with a grand gesture, “is an intervention. Have some scotch.”


	3. Gravitation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dudes im sorry this took so long basically im bad at everything and got super busy. anywhere its here and finally done.

Quentin was filled with panic. Dread, really. He realized that everything he had been avoiding was about to come to head. So instead of facing the issue, he laid back down with a groan and a thump. Which lead to Eliot shoving the cup into his face with more force.

 

So Quentin sat up slowly, taking the cup but not drinking. He tried not to think of anything.

 

“I don’t want to do this.” He said. He stared down into the glass.

 

“Oh, quit moping and just tell us what’s wrong.” Margo said, rolling her eyes.

 

“Nothing’s wrong.” He bit out sharply. He squeezed his eyes shut. Don’t think about him - it - don’t think about anything. Fragments of Eliot filled his thoughts anyway. He pointedly did not look at Penny, not wanting to see his smug, stupid face as he read his thoughts. He was starting to feel angry.

 

“Jesus, Q, if you don't want to talk to all of us at least talk to Eliot.” Alice bit out.

 

Both Quentin and Eliot shot her startled looks.

 

“What? I’m not stupid. You’ve avoided all of us before, but never him. Figure your shit out already.” She got up and stomped up the stairs.

 

Margo and Eliot had a whispered argument for a minute, until Margo got up and followed Alice.

 

Once the shock from Alice’s outburst subsided, Quentin forgot not to think about Eliot. Her words had reminded him of everything he promised himself not to think of and the floodgates burst. All his thoughts and fantasies about the man flew to the front of his mind.

 

“Jesus, man, I did not want to see that!” Penny cried, and all of Quentin’s repressed anger surged through him.

 

“Well I didn’t ASK YOU TO BE HERE!” Quentin shouted, “I DIDN’T WANT ANY OF THIS! WHY COULDN’T YOU HAVE LEFT ME ALONE!”

 

“Holy shit, man, chill okay?” Penny sprung up from his seat, looking unsure but still somehow cocky. Quentin’s anger started turning into self-consciousness. Penny slowly reached out and grabbed his shoulder, then gestured for Eliot and did the same to him. “Listen. I literally hate you so much. Eliot, look me in the eyes. Quentin is in love with you.”

 

Eliot’s face filled with surprise. Quentin tried to protest but all that came out of his mouth was increasingly high pitched stutters. Penny just gripped his shoulder tighter and raised his voice.

 

“Quentin, you fucking idiot, Eliot is also in love with you.”

 

“??????????” Quentin said.

 

“My work here is done and all of you owe me for this. Including you!” Penny shouted up the stairs.

 

“Whatever!” Margo yelled back. Loud shushing that sounded like Alice, followed by whispers, came from above, but the pretense that the women hadn’t been listening in was already ruined. Penny stormed out of the cottage.

Quentin watched him leave and then turned to Eliot, his brain utterly frozen by the dread of his secret being revealed and the elation that Penny’s words may be true. Eliot, in the timespan, had zoomed back over to the liquor shelves and was in the process of pouring another drink. Quentin gravitated towards him unconsciously, reached out for his shoulder. At the touch, Eliot turned and faced him, eyes suspiciously shiny.

 

Quentin couldn’t figure out how to form thoughts, let alone talk. He registered Eliot starting to babble - he watched his mouth move, but the words went straight past him. Eliot… loved him? His unrequited crush wasn’t so unrequited after all? Someone actually loved him back? No matter how many times these thoughts circled his brain, he couldn’t process them. So, still touching Eliot’s shoulder, he did the first thing his stupid lizard brain could think of.

 

He kissed Eliot.

 

It was an utter failure of a kiss. Their lips were smashed together in a facsimile of kissing, more grade schoolers on a playground than passionate adults. Eliot’s nose was poking awkwardly into Quentin’s cheek and he imagined his was doing the same. He pulled back, blushing furiously from embarrassment. Even with Penny’s words as encouragement he felt like he has just ruined everything. He knew how Eliot was about feelings, he must have just ruined things, Eliot didn’t even want to look at him until he made him, why couldn’t he do anything right -

“Q. Calm down, it’s okay.” Eliot’s hands gripped the side of Quentin’s face, gently pushing him to look up. Eliot grinned and said, “Want to try again?”

 

Quentin nodded slowly. Eliot slid his hands down - one against the crook of Quentin’s neck, the other resting against the side of his face. Quentin's heart sped up with anticipation as Eliot leaned towards him, agonizingly slow.

 

And then Eliot’s lips touched his, softly this time. Q opened his mouth instinctively and as the kiss deepened all he could focus on was Eliot’s lips sliding against his and the overwhelming tingling sensation melting down his spine. He felt dizzy and overwhelmed in the best possible way. He gripped Eliot's hips and pushed against him, trying to meld their bodies more together. Eliot responded by pushing back, forcing Quentin to lean against the bar, the wood digging into his back. The kiss seemed to go on for ages and Quentin wanted to feel nothing else but this.

 

And then they were interrupted by a wolf whistle.

 

The boys pulled apart slowly, Eliot's hands still tangled in Quentin's hair. Q sagged against the counter, overwhelmingly feeling the loss of Eliot being so close to him.

 

“Well that was quite a show,” Margo leered from the base of the stairs. “Feel free to carry on.”

 

“Whatever, Bambi.” Eliot sneered jokingly at her, then looked at Quentin and said suggestively, “Wanna go upstairs? To.. _talk_.”

 

“Just talk?” Quentin joked.

 

“Sure.” Eliot winked at him, and offered a hand now free from Quentin's hair.

 

Quentin took it and they went upstairs to the tune of Margo’s catcalls and jeers.

 

But what happened there is a story for another day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ps there will maybe be a few oneshots based on the same 'verse as this i havent decided yet lol


End file.
